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Google Lively Review
joc1985 writes "An objective review of Google Lively after a few hours of playing around. It seems to be a bad copy of Second Life. Somehow all the rooms are crowded, and porn has made its way in there already"
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Billions of dollars in capital and they give us a retread of AlphaWorld from 1996? What's next, GoogleMUD?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
This is hardly an objective review. Then again the Slashdot submitter is also the author of the blog...
When you read comments like "if it wasn't for the logo at the top left you wouldn't even know it was owned and operated by Google. The page is blend with no much color or style" it really makes you wonder. Does it matter that Google didn't brand it everywhere they could like other companies? In classical Google fashion, they took a simplified approach, which itself is a form of Google branding (just look at google.com)
Then the reviewer goes on "It is 100% centered around the mouse, this for me is a horrible defect that must be solved immediately. I happen to know every keyboard shortcut known to man kind (sic) and I absolutely hate the mouse. I am sure there are many people like me out there. " Well good for you buddy. And great research you've done there in assuming that everyone else is just like you.
Finally he concludes with saying he found "several Sex oriented rooms". A quick glance through the room index shows maybe a dozen of the 1000+ rooms that are listed there have a sexual theme. Seems like a pretty good ratio considering the amount of porn to be found on the internet and people's computers in relationship to the rest of the content on the web.
But then again, remember this blog is from "The Random thoughts of a Christian IT Professional."
What more could you ask for???
You write that as if it's a bad thing.
I'm just waiting for the blackjack and hookers.
MABASPLOOM!
Has google jumped-the-shark with their recent products?(things always in beta, no adult supervision claims, etc.)
Website Hosting
Does that imply that a copy of Second Life could somehow be good?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
It was slow. It was clunky. The interface was pretty disappointing. Hell, even the 'Avatar choosing' part was badly done. I couldn't tell if I was supposed to be designing my own somewhere or just 'using someone elses'. It seems to be a half-baked beta indeed.
Are you really that surprised?
And why did this get greenlighted? Can I submit "news" linking to my own blog as well?
Goatse I guess I can understand, Rick Rolls are damn funny but really, is there a huge endorphin rush that comes from saying 'first post' that I am missing? I would think that after the first thousand times it really would not be fun for even the most childish of people.
~ Ron Fitzgerald
That is all. Lol "Google Sadville"
Populus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur...
"Force shits upon Reason's back." - Poor Richard's Almanac
Faces are almost identical to Wii, what I am hopping for is a MMO-RPG-FPS with this capability.
If it's anything like Second Life, that's what you'll be saying a lot of.
This space for rent.
It seems to be a bad copy of Second Life.
That's a severe accusation. I tried Second Life. I thought of it as all the design 'quality' and intelligence of myspace, now with 3D goodness...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
"Technology meets Theology â" The Random thoughts of a Christian IT Professional."
Come on :-( technology and theology intersects by the empty set.
Actually, calling it a beta is being generous. There are a lot of interface quirks and bugs to work out, and the content (as far as avatars, furniture, clothes, etc.) definitely feels more like a sample of what will be available. Once they open it up to user created content, I imagine there will be no shortage of "stuff". FWIW, I didn't really have the connection problems the reviewer had. The whole thing thing gets a little laggy in a crowded room, especially if the room is full of junk, but I didn't have any problems getting in.
As far as the sex themed rooms, they seemed pretty tame to me, at least for now. (Uh, not that I checked them out or anything.) You're limited to streaming videos from YouTube, so you can't show anything that wouldn't pass muster there. You can also display static images in a "picture frame", but the frames seems to be pretty broken at the moment. They seem to only display a small portion of the image, regardless of the resolution. So, at least for the moment, it's pretty much impossible to display anything pornographic. I imagine once they open it up to user created content, though, it will become yet another haven for furries.
I looked at this the other day and it seemed to claim to be a "Windows only" service. My Windows system was busy at the time, so I didn't investigate further and it was unclear if they planned on supporting other platforms in future. That's a non-starter in my book.
Not as tight as Youtube policy? The only region where they may be 'tight' is in removing copyrighted material.... nothing else..... Just look at the recently uploaded, most viewed by day, week or maybe even month.... more than half of them involve some almost naked girl in the preview and sex based themes (although they may not contain actual sex scenes) but that still is not tight implementation....
All I can tell as of now is that he is a Christian IT guy, which means that sex is a nono to him. Personally I'm not surprised with the amount of sex in Second Life; the last time I checked, humans were the ones playing that game. Sex on Google Lively should be no surprise.
"Technology meets Theology â" The Random thoughts of a Christian IT Professional."
Looks like Jeebus couldn't save his webserver from spewing 500s once it got /.ed.
...would never use the Internet for pron.
That assumes that there some limit to the supply of easily excitable, childish people out there.
Objective: Free of personal bias and opinion, as in an objective evaluation.
Your website is broken (in several browsers), so all I can do is go on the comment responses...
You seem to be making values judgments on the fact that there is porn in the new game. You are comparing it to your subjective opinion of Second Life.
Watch from minute 3 on, he says it best.
Hello, I'm new to this ./ website. Can you please tell me know to moderate the summary (-1, binspam)?
TIA!
Actually, I played with Lively a bit yesterday and I have to say, for a beta, I'm quite impressed. The poster seems to be ignoring the fact that this is a beta.
I found it FAR more user-friendly than 2nd life. The tools for building things up aren't bad. Again, it's still in beta, but it all looks very promising. Is it better than second life? I doubt it, but it's also in BETA!
I do have some issues with it. Camera doesn't seem to follow the avatar. Can't get a view from the avatar's perspective ("Avatar's View" is a view from above and behind the avatar). The camera doesn't do a very good job of following the avatar. As far as I can tell, there's no way to connect rooms together, which is something I'd like to see.
Overall, for a beta product, I'm quite impressed and look forward to seeing it when it's released.
I didn't really even try it out. Why on earth would they choose DirectX over SDL (or VRML or something) if they planned to release this for more than the one crappy platform that supports DirectX (by design).
From google, I was really expecting an open product or protocol. If it's just another closed directx app I'll just go play guild wars or something.
Imagine if you weren't allowed to use roads because a bus company complained about your driving 3 times. --skunkpussy
it's not interesting enough in itself for me to want to spend time playing with it.
Looking at it in terms of a "20%" product that one of their engineers whipped out on their 'spare' time, it's fairly cool. I don't think they really expected the level of interest that would be shown though, or they would have held it back a bit longer for some more polish.
It has been in testing before this current release. I can't remember which, but it was released to a university a year prior for their student community to play with.
In a year, when it's been hammered on a bit more and Google either rolls it into a full fledged product or cuts it loose, I'll start paying more attention.
Anybody else feel that Google is biting off more than they can chew?
I mean, smart people work there to be sure, they have a neat work environment and they excel at search. But everything else they do, and there might be a few exceptions here and there, doesn't hit the mark as far as being "top tier" like their search is. Gmail is probably their best product, albeit free but subsidized by advertising, and then Picasa and Google Analytics. Otherwise a lot of things are very 'meh'... their online office suite, Picasa Web, etc...
Dunno, I think they need to reorganize themselves a bit before they spiral out of control with 'extra' projects, that they lose control of the one thing they are best at -- search.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
"...porn has made its way in there already"
You say that as if it is a bad thing.
See my Home Theater
...then I am impressed. I couldn't stand it for more than half an hour.
I tried it out last night and I was thoroughly underwhelmed. I couldn't get the rooms to avoid exception errors for more than 5-10 minutes at a time.
At one point, I had cascading exception errors and had 66 processes not responding in a matter of seconds (up from my normal 31ish).
Not only that, but I expected, AT MINIMUM, an avatar in an environment that was as easy to use as WoW with no clipping of outer bounds.
The one concept that I did love though, is that I can take my avatar and engage him in an environment with any theme from knights and dragons to beaches to the future.
This is a concept that is poorly implemented, years behind its time for the social networking aspect, and a bit ahead of its time in an mmo aspect.
So its a new Web 2.0-esque masturbation party where people can chat with avatars, instead of on AIM or god forbid, calling them on the phone. Its overcrowded, underpowered, full of spam, and doesn't offer anything compelling. Do we pimp everything Google does? Does the term "Google fanboy" suddenly have meaning?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Too costly.
I don't think I've ever seen those two words in the same sentence before.
I gotta take a shit. I wonder if Lively has toilets available for public use. Hell, even if it doesn't, I'll just crap on the floor just like this review.
First posting is like popping a girl's cherry. Or something slashdot readers might understand, it's like a computer with a fresh and pristine copy of windows.
Why you think the second-life clone was born?
@desc me=A grue. He is likely to eat you.;@adesc me=@emit The Grue pours water on your lantern.
First posting is like popping a girl's cherry. Or something slashdot readers might understand, it's like a computer with a fresh and pristine copy of windows.
If you'd said Linux, you'd have 10000 nerds nodding their heads simultaneously. Instead, as it is written, they are scratching their bald heads in the dark of their moms basement. Maybe you should have tried a car analogy instead. Everyone has a car - not everyone has windows (either in their basement, nor on their computers).
Marc
The dude says he dislikes social networking tools, he didn't give it a chance. OMG SEX... please. I read this article this morning which is a better overview imo.
Penguin walks into a bar and asks the barman; Has my father been in here? The barman says; Dunno what's he look like?
I live in Copenhagen and bike everywhere, so I do NOT have a car, you insensitive clod!
Blah blah sig blah blah blah irony blah blah
More people don't have a car than people who don't have linux.
/request muliplayer google nethack for great justice.
You forget, this is /. you're talking about.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Somehow all the rooms are crowded, and porn has made its way in there already"
You say that as if that's a bad thing.
If these virtual worlds included tagging other users with different "reject" or "approve" ratings, we could make pivate notes of who we reject and approve association with. People could even tag themselves with these ratings, which we could accept or ignore at our own option. And if the world included a social network function, we could adopt our friends' (or, probably unwisely, strangers' or enemies') ratings. If we could attach simple logic to the social network's ratings implications, like "friend of my friend is my friend" or "enemy of my enemy is my friend", or "30:10:60% friend:enemy:unknown is my friend, unless my friend X is their enemy, in which case they're my enemy", we'd be able to use our real world social skills to screen access to virtual characters.
That system seems like a natural fit for Google's Orkut social network. With any luck, those tagging/rating/screening systems will be exposed in a standard protocol that will let us merge all our social networks in the separate sites into one big happy family (and mortal enemies, and true strangers), with all points between.
--
make install -not war
So, I installed and played with it for a few hours...
Not impressed...
It takes for-ever to load, and then everyone stands around changing their settings, waiting for it to load, adding or moving or deleting furniture...
Chatting is the last thing on people's minds...and the way you can interact with others is odd...body slamming, slapping, kissing...
So there is a lot of that going on...and most of the guys in one chat room had female avatars...
I don't see it as the "next generation" of chat...text is still too easy and useful...
--E--
"Technology meets Theology â" The Random thoughts of a Christian IT Professional."
Yeah, REAL objective. This guy's scared of sex on the Interwebs.
What a worthless review... How this actually made this onto /., I have NO idea!
Thanks for the waste of a minute of my life!
"...The smart and lazy ones I make my commanders." - Erwin Rommel
Porn gets blocked by web filters. Google's business goals for Google Video and YouTube are to generate ad revenue. What content generates that revenue is irrelevant.
What's this guy talking about, porn? That's what the web was mad for. And what's wrong with the mouse? Who surfs for porn with both hands free? ;)
Picture frames you can load up with your own pictures (goatse), TV that you can load with youtube vids (Rick Ashley). ;-)
Think of the possibilities here. Where else can you goatse AND rickroll everyone at the same time!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Its a well known fact that secondLife has really taken off and made a hit with everyone that can pay for it. It is essentually one virtual world rather than many virtual rooms. I really wish Google would have taken this approach rather than just launch some embedled 3-d chat rooms. There is so much more potential, if Google wanted to, it could take a majority of secondLife's users just by modleing after it except making many aspects of it free. Their was also the potential of virtual ads, virtual web browsing, and opening it up to developers to really (and I do mean really) play with. Right now it looks too unrealistic and childish.
I am a lowly high school student... please dont assume im an expert.
I agree for the most part except for the following: they are scratching their bald heads, but many of us are young and are not quite balding yet. in the dark of their moms basement, or at their work desk their boss is not looking.
Guys, please... The author has deleted every single comment I've tried to post, and several more from other users. All in the name of *objective* reviewing, of course...
If you didn't notice, the logo at the top of the Lively website says BETA. As a programmer myself, I find it disrespectful and immature to just troll the developers. Give them a break and test the software and let them know what you think should be added, fixed, etc. If you don't like the porn rooms, then don't go into them. Simple as that. And if you have kids, then be a parent and monitor their Internet use. I'm sure Google is going to take advice and have a feature to block explicit rooms. It's just plain common sense.
"Without curiosity and knowledge, the mind is a vast void. Without the mind, curiosity and knowledge are nonexistent."
Downloaded and installed the app and logged in - after over a minute of waiting for a room to load I closed the browser. I went back to site and clicked on 'help', and found (as is typical of Google) not documentation but forums where people share what learned about how the app works by luck and random clicking about.
Yet another Google product tossed up without much thought, development, testing, or follow through... Trusting that the googledroids around the world will use it anyhow even though it lacks key features and functionality.
I probably won't be back, as like most of Google's suite it seems destined to be a distant second place also-ran.
Slashdot should make their own virtual social network. Think of the possibilities!
"Without curiosity and knowledge, the mind is a vast void. Without the mind, curiosity and knowledge are nonexistent."
Comparing what lively is now to second life that's already been out for a very long time doesnt seem all that objective~ (and by comparing I mean using the standards second life has built up until now while judging lively that just got released)
I live in Manhattan and I dont even have a bike.. i have to take stinking subways, U insensitive clod!
First posting is like popping a girl's cherry.
eh, it's really not that great. Give me a girl with experience over a tentative virgin, anytime ...
Obviously it is more to do with the fact that it annoys so many people, like you. Of course, most of us just ignore it, but some don't, once again, like you. This is similar to feeding the trolls.
"Lively is not ready for your platform.
Lively requires Windows Vista or XP with Internet Explorer or Firefox"